Studies are undertaken to extend our prior observations which show beneficial influences of dietary calorie restriction on the lifespan of short-lived, autoimmune prone B/W mice. These mice, when fed ad-libitum, develop a number of diseases which are associated with premature death. Dietary studies are now planned in detail, not only on B/W mice but also on the recently discovered, extremely short-lived MRL/lpr and BXSB mouse strains. We will be analyzing the effect of dietary restriction of calorie intake on thymic involution, involution of lymphocytes and their functions, perturbations of subsets of lymphocytes, analyses of cellular and humoral immunologic functions and possible fundamental alterations of immunohematological development in these short-lived autoimmune prone strains. We will also analyse the levels of circulating immune complex, gp70 antibody, ss-DNA, ds-DNA, and deposition of gp70 in glomeruli of mice fed normal and restricted dietary intakes. It is to be anticipated that the present investigation will shed light on interactions between short life span, immunoregulation, and control of immunologic involution, and the development of autoimmune, cardiovascular and renal diseases in these mice. To understand the mechanism by which calorie restriction abrogates the otherwise apparently relentless progression of cellular and immunological processes of aging could provide exploitable leads in the struggle to intervene against the progressive development of diseases of aging in humans.